How One Of America's Most Successful Self-Made Women Is Revolutionizing Natural Skincare

Jessica Iclisoy, CEO of California Baby, on her farm in Santa Barbara County.Ethan Pines for Forbes

After five and a half years spent testing plant compounds, Jessica Iclisoy and her team at California Baby have created the first 100% plant-based preservative for use in skin care products. “When I first started California Baby, I wanted to replace preservatives,” Iclisoy says. “That was the one thing I wasn't able to do, because it's such a big chemical issue. It's not just something you can do on your kitchen counter.” Iclisoy will start reintroducing all 90 of her non-toxic and organic baby products with the new, 100% naturally derived formula in September, making her the first personal care products maker to do so.

Iclisoy says she had been told for more than two decades that a 100% biologically based, fully functional preservative was impossible to create – and none of the big conglomerates wanted to spend the time or money required to try. Iclisoy spent roughly $10 million developing her preservative in a 15,000 square-foot manufacturing plant that she purchased in 2001 after becoming dissatisfied with the factories with which she was working. That’s a rarity in the industry, since most personal care brands contract with independent manufacturers. The preservative she developed uses compounds derived from a new strain of basil along with anise. Iclisoy's invention replaces sodium benzoate, the last synthetic ingredient used in her formulas.

After years of having a hard time sourcing certain organic ingredients, Iclisoy bought a 100-acre farm in Santa Barbara in 2011 called Flower and Vine. Most of the farm is used for growing organic calendula flowers, which are pressed into a key oil used in California Baby’s products, including rash cream and sunscreen. Now, Iclisoy says some of the acreage on the farm will be dedicated to growing the basil strain Iclisoy’s chemists developed as well as the anise needed to make the preservative. “Every one of these natural plants have a variety of active components. We're isolating the most active part, so the plant that we're growing is going to be very high in that,” Iclisoy says. Because she controls her own supply of the new preservative, there is a chance that others in the industry might eventually license it from her, something she would welcome.

“My goal has always been to change the industry, or help the industry evolve. Once we figured it out, once we hammered it down, we created something that no other company has,” Iclisoy says.

Another way she’s trying to change the industry: Iclisoy has been advocating in Congress and with the Food and Drug Administration for better labeling standards and safe ingredient regulations around natural skincare since 2016 with her lobbying group, Natural Advisory Council. Iclisoy says she hopes that the roll-out of reformulated products in September will prove to the FDA that a 100% plant-based skincare product can be commercially produced and serve as a model for a regulated natural standard that will eventually lead to a new certification system. In the short term, she’ll be working with the FDA to prove there is nothing synthetic in her products and create a legal definition based on it.

“For these big companies who are still using toxic ingredients, and justifying it by saying, ‘it can't be done [any other way],’’ Iclisoy says, “my goal is to it prove to them and say, ‘Look, here, it can be done and it can be efficacious, it can be beautiful, it can be marketable.’”

I track the fortunes of the world's wealthiest here at Forbes, from billionaires in Japan and Europe to America's richest self-made women. I also work on the 30 Under 30 Food and Drink list, as well as Forbes' Most Innovative Ag Tech Companies list. My reporting has brought ...